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As the weather turns cold and the skies darken, the MLS season winds down. Even though there is a playoff game on Thursday night for other MLS teams, FC Dallas is already moving on to 2019. In every manner that counts, today is the first training session of the 2019 FC Dallas season.

55 degrees as the training session gets going at 9:30 am. FCD has moved out to field #4 as they often do this time of year to help their #1 training field recover.

News and Notes

Head Coach Oscar Pareja isn't here today, he's visiting some colleges with his son Diego. Diego plays soccer and has been involved with the FCD Academy at various stages and is looking to continue his playing days in college.

Cristian Colman is missing of course, as he's out injured for a long time.

Also taking part today is Carlos Avilez, who most of you will know as the keeper signed to a USL contract.

One interesting sighting is Mauro Chichero. Today's he's in full training gear and doing some jogging. After some laps, he even does some ball work with trainers. This is the first workout I have seen from him in over a year. If you don't recall, Chichero was SMU's senior playmaker last year and would have been a first-round MLS pick if he hadn't suffered an ACL injury last October. FCD was high enough on him to draft him in the 2nd round even injured.

Missing of course are Paxton Pomykal and Brandon Servania who are both with the US U20s at the Concacaf U20 Championship. Adonijah Reid is with Canada at the same tournament.

Player not allowed to take part in the session, due to the CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement) because they are not under contract for 2019: Roland Lamah, Maynor Figueroa, Abel Aguilar, Kyle Zobeck, Jordan Cano, Kris Reaves, Victor Ulloa, Tesho Akindele, Jacori Hayes, and Ryan Hollingshead. This doesn't mean they can't come back for 2019, some will, some won't. Read our offseason rebuild plan for more info.

Chris Richards remains on loan with Bayern Munich.

Carlos Gruezo leaves this Sunday to join Ecuador.

One piece of news, Anibal Chala has permanently moved to LDU Quinto.

Spoke with FC Dallas president and owner Dan Hunt earlier. One bit of news from our convo: Anibal Chala is no longer with FCD. He's permanently with Ecuadoran club LDU Quito, where he'd been on loan for basically his entire Dallas tenure. Ex-young DP didn't play a minute in MLS.

Thomas Roberts was on fire today. It's so rare to see a 17-year-old step right into MLS training with no nerves showing at all. This kid is a baller, I'm trying hard not to get too hyped, but holy cow am I hyped about his future. No, he's not ready right this minute to play in MLS, but he's sure ready for USL L1.

Surprisingly Moises Hernandez is looking really great today as well. Maybe with a few players missing he senses an opportunity.

As always, Maxi Urruti is intense and working hard. Don't think I've ever seen this guy take a day off.

Training Observations

After some lines and warm-ups, most of the team goes through a shuttle test. I think this is an end of the season measurement.

After a little individual ball work, FCD goes into a 30-yard possession type drill. There are three teams for this drill, so it's always 2 teams versus 1. Even the keepers take part.

After about 20 minutes of play, the game shifts to a 40-yard mini-game with full-size goals and keepers in the nets. Two teams play at a time. Green seems to win the most battles on the day.

Catching up with Marco Ferruzzi

As I mentioned, Coach Pareja wasn't around today, but Assistant Coach Marco Ferruzzi was nice enough to answer some questions instead.

What is the goal for this week, what are you all as a staff looking to get accomplished?

We're doing a little bit of testing with the boys to see how they've recovered from the year, and going into next year as well. The plan is to take them through the 16th, which is next Friday. They'll be off on the weekend.

A couple of the boys have got national team calls ups, so we're making sure their legs are turning over so they go into those camp well and healthy. Also so they don't have a long break before they get into competition again.

Some of it will be working on personal, individual programs with the players. Things we want them to think about in the offseason. Obviously, it's a prolonged offseason nobody is a big fan of, but we want to make sure certain guys are walking away with, whether it's on the physical side or the technical side... that these are the things we are going to keep trying pound into them between now and January.

In terms of your offseason program; things like analysis, scouting for the draft, evaluations, planning for next year; where are you guys in that process?

We're putting names together for the SuperDraft, obviously, with the trade we made with Colorado, that's going to give us a nice high pick. [4th overall] So that's going to be a clear focus for the offseason, making sure that we get something of value that's going to come help the team.

For the players per se, their program is going to be an offseason program that they are going to have to maintain, per the CBA.

The next couple of things that will happen are the contract negotiations with the players that are out of contract right now. And then obviously what's going to happen with the expansion draft, the protections, and all those things. That's happening between now and MLS Cup. So that's what the technical group is going to be dealing with now for the next roughly 6 weeks or so. And that will prepare us for January.

The offseason stuff for the players, training wise, that's going to be on them. We always give them a program. That's a CBA mandated thing that we can't affect.

Without Concacaf [Champions League], you can say they have that bit of time to be ready just to come back in and prepare for an MLS season. So, I think given the last couple of season [with CCL] it's probably warranted. That they can take those extra days off.

But we know these boys too, they start to itch after three or four weeks. Everybody needs to move.

So you have to rely on any individual's maturity or professionalism to follow through on that program?

Yeah, but I haven't seen where that's just not the case. This even happens domestically in college. This happens here in our league. It's kind of an understated rule of the clubs that these players are having to do that because they're... again this is not a knock on the CBA, but it is what it is. It is how it's written, how it's been agreed upon.

But the players know that you're gonna grind for a nine-month, ten-month season, being off for roughly two and a half months, is a little bit too long. So they have to keep their bodies prepared, mentally prepared.

Like I said, we've got some guys that are being called into the national team camps. There's going to be a January camp as well, guys are gonna be... they won't be taking too much time off.

What goes into the process of evaluating last season? Is it film? I assume you already know, this is an area we need to get better at... how much is it about looking back long-term versus correcting things you were already thinking about during the season and didn't have time to get to?

It provides perspective. At the end of the day when we rolling in January... let's say [players] were leaving in the summer window, or the winter window hasn't brought you anything different... that's what your focus is, the group. That locker room. Preparing them for competition.

You go back over, where could we have changed something, brought something in, what did we do with the group that we have? Is there something we could have aligned different? Could we have pushed a little bit differently than we did?

So that's part of the evaluation that we do at the end of the year preparing us for the following year because I think it gives us more instigation once we get into A. the draft or B. the winter window, or even the summer window... and maybe this is where we have to make a splash or do something.

So we're more informed. By the end of the year, we're more informed. Especially when we come off the end of a season where we feel like we missed out on a little bit of something. We always ask the questions.